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Michigan: A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People
The history of Michigan is a fascinating story of breathtaking geography enriched by an abundant water supply, of bold fur traders and missionaries who developed settlements that grew into major cities, of ingenious entrepreneurs who established thriving industries, and of celebrated cultural icons like the Motown sound. It is also the story of the exploitation of Native Americans, racial discord that resulted in a devastating riot, and ongoing tensions between employers and unions. A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People recounts this colorful past and the significant role the state has played in shaping the United States. Well-researched and engagingly written, the book spans from Michigan’s geologic formation to important 21st-century developments in a concise but detailed chronicle that will appeal to general readers, scholars, and students interested in Michigan’s past, present, and future.
- GenresHistory
449 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 8, 2017
This is the first book I have read that is the history of one state (or that focuses primarily on one state). Or at least, the first time I have read such a book for pleasure (I do remember my Alabama history class in high school, though I doubt I read the entire textbook).
I think my comparison to that long, long ago class is apt, as _Michigan: A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People_, right down to the title, read, looked like, and felt like a textbook. Just like every general history text book I had in high school and the first few years of college, it began with a very sweeping chapter on Native Americans, attempting to cover everything from prehistoric times just after the Ice Age all the way to Native Americans today before moving on to the history of European settlers and their descendants.
When I first started reading it, I had a bad feeling at first, what with the author’s fairly short, easy to read sentences, relative lack of erudite words, the way such large segments of history were summarized, and the relative lack of a strong narrative flow to the story or any attempt to make some greater point or set of points throughout the book.
As I continued to read I relaxed though. For one thing, it was just a good general survey of a large topic so certain things (such as a “novel feel”) just weren’t going to be possible. I found the author did have a bit of a voice, subtle at first, but evident to me after a while, with a taste for the somewhat unusual and forgotten aspects of Michigan history as well as something of a very dry sense of humor.
Most of all though, I just enjoyed learning so much, either more information on things I knew a little about or learning about something I had never heard of. Certainly after reading this book I think there is a very strong case to be made that if someone wants to know more about American (and even world) history, one would be well served by reading books about the history of individual states.
There were a number of chapters or sections of chapters that were quite interesting. I had read a bit about the story of the _Griffon_ and Rene-Robert Cavelier, de La Salle in the excellent book _The Living Great Lakes_ by Jerry Dennis but was pleased to get more information, _Griffon_ having the distinction of being both the first sailing vessel on the Great Lakes and also the first ship to sink on the lakes. The portrait of La Salle himself, while brief, was interesting, described as both gifted with “almost superhuman strength, tenacity and courage” but also guilty of having “never took any one’s advice” (both contemporary quotes supplied by the author and I suppose a common trait among many early European explorers, brave people who often came to bad ends). I hadn’t appreciated or realized the long French presence in Michigan, as not only did they found Detroit but ruled Michigan for 150 years. Even after Michigan left French control there was a strong French-speaking presence in Detroit for decades afterwards. It was interesting to read the brief discussion of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the early 18th century French founder of Detroit, that despite the successes attributed to him he was “one of the worst scoundrels ever to set foot in New France,” as he was a commoner and not the noble he claimed to be.
Chapter 3 (“The British Take Control”) was good, as it had coverage of Pontiac’s Rebellion (which “ended with a whimper”), the importance of Detroit to the British during the American Revolution (base for Henry Hamilton, who achieved some notoriety as the “hair buyer” as he supposedly paid Native Americans for scalps of rebel Americans), the surprising Spanish capture in 1781 of Fort St. Joseph in present-day Niles, Michigan, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers (a fight between the new American government and Native Americans, so called because a recent tornado had knocked so many trees at the site of the conflict, a battle that took place in Maumee, Ohio but had enormous impact on the Native Americans of Michigan and the region).
Chapter 6 (“Quest for Statehood”) has the fascinating tale of the bloodless (or very nearly so, no fatalities) Toledo War of the 1830s, when Michigan and Ohio clashed over the Toledo Strip, the land around Toledo, both vigorously laying claim to the vital area of land.
Chapter 10 (“Logging the Forests”) was a fascinating chapter, telling the epic and fascinating tale of the Michigan timber industry. Between the 1850s and the late 1890s Michigan lead the nation in timber production, the dollar value exceeding the value of California gold by more than a billion dollars. In this engaging chapter, one learns about cork pines (exceptional and highly prized specimens of White Pine, often 200 feet tall and with 5 foot diameters and few branches, producing exceptional knot-free timber), how there was widespread fraudulent use of the Homestead Act of 1862 to claim timber land, how for much of the time the prevalent term used was “shanty boy” (with lumberjack not coming into use until the 1870s), “log marks” (placed by a company’s “hammer man” at the end of logs floated down rivers to mills, at one point there was in excess of 3,500 different Michigan log marks), “river hogs” (the loggers who earned the highest wages but had the dangerous job of accompanying the floating logs, divided into a driving crew, jam crew, and sacking crew). There is of course coverage of the horrific and deadly fires that came with the timber industry as out of control fires burned through the fields of stumps and branches (“slash”) left behind and in vivid contrast and on a lighter note the history of the legend of Paul Bunyan (first appearance in print was in _The Detroit News-Tribune_ on July 24, 1910).
Many topics were interesting, too many to really list, but favorites include coverage of the Copper Rush and the tale of the Ontonagon Boulder (a famous mass of copper from the Upper Peninsula that weighed 3,700 pounds, at one point held by the War Department, and was claimed by Native Americans in the 1990s, who lost that claim, the boulder now lying at the National Museum of Natural History), the story of the cereal “boom” of Battle Creek, Michigan, the completely unknown to me saga of the “Polar Bears” (the American North Russian Expeditionary Force, a 90% Michiganian force, commanded by British officers, deployed against the Bolsheviks in Russia), and another famous Michiganian unit, the 32nd Division (nicknamed the Ghost Mountain Boys, the first army division to go into combat in World War II and that achieved fame in New Guinea and the Philippines). There are multiple sections in various chapters dealing with the history of the anti-slavery movement in Michigan, the history of the car industry, the civil rights movement in Michigan (especially Detroit), and Michigan’s role in 20th century politics (including furnishing a President).
Few real complaints other than my usual complaint of such books, that of wanting more information on a particular topic before the author whisks the reader way to the next historical event or era. Towards the very end (especially in the Postscript) the author was trying to hit high points in recent and relatively recent Michiganian history such as the stories of particular politicians and it didn’t seem as thematic as earlier chapters but that seemed also understandable, particularly if this is a text book to be read by Michigan students. Sometimes town names were rattled off and I had no idea where these places were, though there was a map early in the book that covered many of them. I did like the extensive end notes, notes in the chapter about where one can see museums and monuments that related to certain events and people, and the many photographs. The author appeared to try to be fairly non-partisan in his coverage of the various topics, a challenge I am sure in the some of the topics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and appeared to step away from any sort of advocacy towards current problems (though perhaps could have dealt a bit more with the decline of the city of Detroit).
I think my comparison to that long, long ago class is apt, as _Michigan: A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People_, right down to the title, read, looked like, and felt like a textbook. Just like every general history text book I had in high school and the first few years of college, it began with a very sweeping chapter on Native Americans, attempting to cover everything from prehistoric times just after the Ice Age all the way to Native Americans today before moving on to the history of European settlers and their descendants.
When I first started reading it, I had a bad feeling at first, what with the author’s fairly short, easy to read sentences, relative lack of erudite words, the way such large segments of history were summarized, and the relative lack of a strong narrative flow to the story or any attempt to make some greater point or set of points throughout the book.
As I continued to read I relaxed though. For one thing, it was just a good general survey of a large topic so certain things (such as a “novel feel”) just weren’t going to be possible. I found the author did have a bit of a voice, subtle at first, but evident to me after a while, with a taste for the somewhat unusual and forgotten aspects of Michigan history as well as something of a very dry sense of humor.
Most of all though, I just enjoyed learning so much, either more information on things I knew a little about or learning about something I had never heard of. Certainly after reading this book I think there is a very strong case to be made that if someone wants to know more about American (and even world) history, one would be well served by reading books about the history of individual states.
There were a number of chapters or sections of chapters that were quite interesting. I had read a bit about the story of the _Griffon_ and Rene-Robert Cavelier, de La Salle in the excellent book _The Living Great Lakes_ by Jerry Dennis but was pleased to get more information, _Griffon_ having the distinction of being both the first sailing vessel on the Great Lakes and also the first ship to sink on the lakes. The portrait of La Salle himself, while brief, was interesting, described as both gifted with “almost superhuman strength, tenacity and courage” but also guilty of having “never took any one’s advice” (both contemporary quotes supplied by the author and I suppose a common trait among many early European explorers, brave people who often came to bad ends). I hadn’t appreciated or realized the long French presence in Michigan, as not only did they found Detroit but ruled Michigan for 150 years. Even after Michigan left French control there was a strong French-speaking presence in Detroit for decades afterwards. It was interesting to read the brief discussion of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the early 18th century French founder of Detroit, that despite the successes attributed to him he was “one of the worst scoundrels ever to set foot in New France,” as he was a commoner and not the noble he claimed to be.
Chapter 3 (“The British Take Control”) was good, as it had coverage of Pontiac’s Rebellion (which “ended with a whimper”), the importance of Detroit to the British during the American Revolution (base for Henry Hamilton, who achieved some notoriety as the “hair buyer” as he supposedly paid Native Americans for scalps of rebel Americans), the surprising Spanish capture in 1781 of Fort St. Joseph in present-day Niles, Michigan, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers (a fight between the new American government and Native Americans, so called because a recent tornado had knocked so many trees at the site of the conflict, a battle that took place in Maumee, Ohio but had enormous impact on the Native Americans of Michigan and the region).
Chapter 6 (“Quest for Statehood”) has the fascinating tale of the bloodless (or very nearly so, no fatalities) Toledo War of the 1830s, when Michigan and Ohio clashed over the Toledo Strip, the land around Toledo, both vigorously laying claim to the vital area of land.
Chapter 10 (“Logging the Forests”) was a fascinating chapter, telling the epic and fascinating tale of the Michigan timber industry. Between the 1850s and the late 1890s Michigan lead the nation in timber production, the dollar value exceeding the value of California gold by more than a billion dollars. In this engaging chapter, one learns about cork pines (exceptional and highly prized specimens of White Pine, often 200 feet tall and with 5 foot diameters and few branches, producing exceptional knot-free timber), how there was widespread fraudulent use of the Homestead Act of 1862 to claim timber land, how for much of the time the prevalent term used was “shanty boy” (with lumberjack not coming into use until the 1870s), “log marks” (placed by a company’s “hammer man” at the end of logs floated down rivers to mills, at one point there was in excess of 3,500 different Michigan log marks), “river hogs” (the loggers who earned the highest wages but had the dangerous job of accompanying the floating logs, divided into a driving crew, jam crew, and sacking crew). There is of course coverage of the horrific and deadly fires that came with the timber industry as out of control fires burned through the fields of stumps and branches (“slash”) left behind and in vivid contrast and on a lighter note the history of the legend of Paul Bunyan (first appearance in print was in _The Detroit News-Tribune_ on July 24, 1910).
Many topics were interesting, too many to really list, but favorites include coverage of the Copper Rush and the tale of the Ontonagon Boulder (a famous mass of copper from the Upper Peninsula that weighed 3,700 pounds, at one point held by the War Department, and was claimed by Native Americans in the 1990s, who lost that claim, the boulder now lying at the National Museum of Natural History), the story of the cereal “boom” of Battle Creek, Michigan, the completely unknown to me saga of the “Polar Bears” (the American North Russian Expeditionary Force, a 90% Michiganian force, commanded by British officers, deployed against the Bolsheviks in Russia), and another famous Michiganian unit, the 32nd Division (nicknamed the Ghost Mountain Boys, the first army division to go into combat in World War II and that achieved fame in New Guinea and the Philippines). There are multiple sections in various chapters dealing with the history of the anti-slavery movement in Michigan, the history of the car industry, the civil rights movement in Michigan (especially Detroit), and Michigan’s role in 20th century politics (including furnishing a President).
Few real complaints other than my usual complaint of such books, that of wanting more information on a particular topic before the author whisks the reader way to the next historical event or era. Towards the very end (especially in the Postscript) the author was trying to hit high points in recent and relatively recent Michiganian history such as the stories of particular politicians and it didn’t seem as thematic as earlier chapters but that seemed also understandable, particularly if this is a text book to be read by Michigan students. Sometimes town names were rattled off and I had no idea where these places were, though there was a map early in the book that covered many of them. I did like the extensive end notes, notes in the chapter about where one can see museums and monuments that related to certain events and people, and the many photographs. The author appeared to try to be fairly non-partisan in his coverage of the various topics, a challenge I am sure in the some of the topics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and appeared to step away from any sort of advocacy towards current problems (though perhaps could have dealt a bit more with the decline of the city of Detroit).
December 6, 2018
An excellently written history of Michigan. Lots of good profiles, photographs, and facts in here. The earlier chapters are especially strong.
December 10, 2018
Very informational book on Michigan's history. Easy to read and enjoyable.
September 14, 2014
Very nicely done - I didn't read the entire book, only the sections that interested me - which were very well done.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews